• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.617-621
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• 1990

A heart supplies blood of about 15, 000 liters to each human organ in a day. A normal function of heart valves is necessary to accomplish these enormous work of heart. The disease of heart valve develops to a narrowness of a closure, resulting in an abnormal circulation of blood. In an attempt to eliminate the affliction of heart valves, the operative method to replace with artificial heart valves has developed and saved numerous patients over past 30 years. This replacement operation has been performed since early 1960`s in Korea, but all the artificial heart valves used are imported from abroad with very high costs until recent years. New artificial heart valves have been developed in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology since early 1980`s. The first developed valve was designed with a free-floating pyrolytic carbon disk that is suspended in a titanium cage. The design of the valve was tested in vitro, and in animals in 1987. The results from this study was that the eccentrically placed struts creates a major and minor orifice when the disc opens and stagnation of flow in the area of the minor orifice has led to valve thrombosis. In this work, the design of the valve was changed from a single - leaflet valve to double - leaflet one in order to resolve the problems observed in the first - year tests. Morphological and hemodynamic studies were made for the newly designed valves through the in vitro and in vivo tests. The design and partial materials of the artificial heart valve was improved comparing with first - year`s model. The disc in the valve was modified from single - leaflet to bi - leaflet, and the material of the cage was changed from titanium metal to silicon - alloyed pyrolytic carbon. A test was made for the valve in order to examine its mechanical performance and stability. Morphological and hemodynamic studies were made for the valve that had been implanted in tricuspid position of mongrel dogs. All the test animals were observed just before the deaths. A new artificial heart valve was designed and fabricated in order to resolve the problems observed in the old model. The new valve was verified to have good stability and high resistance to wear through the performance tests. The hemodynamic properties of the valve after implantation were also estimated to be good in animal tests. Therefore, the results suggest that the newly designed valve in this work has a good quality in view of the biocompatibility. However, valve thrombosis on valve leaflets and annulus were found. This morphological findings were in accordance with results of surface polishing status studies, indicating that a technique of fine polishing of the surface is necessary to develop a valve with higher quality and performance.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.535-540
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• 1978

Between January 1974 and November 1978, 23 cases of double valve replacement were done in the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Seoul National university Hospital. All had symptoms of rheumatic valvular heart disease and belonged to functional class III or IV according to NYHA classification. Among 23 cases, mitral and aortic valves were replaced in 14, and mitral and tricuspid valves in 9 cases. Six operative deaths [26%] and 4 late deaths [23%] were found. In the former group 5 and in latter one operative death were noted. Main cause of operative death was low cardiac output syndrome due to myocardial failure. Among 4 late deaths, 2 were caused by thromboembolism, one by bacterial endocarditis, and one by arrhythmia.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.347-350
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• 1988

Recent advances in the managements of chronic renal failure have increased the number of the candidates for cardiac operation in patients with chronic renal disease. There have been reports that the operative mortality of the open cardiac surgery in patients with end stage renal diseases was equal to that of the patients with normal renal function. Aortic valve replacement and mitral annuloplasty was successfully performed in a patient with chronic renal failure, and the pre-and postoperative managements are presented.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.158-161
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• 1990

A congenital coronary artery fistula is an uncommon anomaly which has a direct communication between a coronary artery and the lumen of any one of the four cardiac chambers, or the coronary sinus, or its tributary veins or the superior vena cava. The right coronary artery is involved most frequently, and the abnormal communication in most often is to the right ventricle followed in incidence by drainage into the right atrium and the pulmonary artery. Recently. we experienced a case of congenital coronary artery fistula associated with valvular heart disease. The fistulous communication was noted between the left circumflex artery and the left atrial appendage. Under the cardiopulmonary bypass, the internal obliteration of the left atrial appendage, mitral valve replacement, and aortic valve exploration were accomplished. Postoperative hospital course was uneventful and the patient was discharged without any problems.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.92-100
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• 1987

On rare occasions, the left atrium may become extremely large in the mitral valvular disease, showing giant left atrium. The giant left atrium frequently produce compressing effects to the adjacent organs, resulting in the postoperative problems with regard to the hemodynamic and respiratory management. We experienced 13 patients with giant left atrium combined with mitral valvular disease from Oct. 1980 through June 1986. Eleven cases underwent mitral valve replacement with left atrial plication and the other 2 cases were underwent mitral valve replacement without left atrial plication. The follow-up period was 19.3 months in average. There were remarkable postoperative improvements in the chest roentgenogram, echocardiogram, lung function test, NYHA functional class in patients who underwent plication procedure. The postoperative mortality was 9% in plication cases and 50% in non-plication cases.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.144-146
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• 2020

Supravalvar aortic stenosis (SVAS) is a rare congenital cardiac disease that usually co-occurs with Williams syndrome. In the adult population, a few SVAS cases have been reported in patients affected by homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. However, because of the rarity of this disease entity, there is no standard surgical treatment for SVAS. Here, we present a case of successful surgical treatment using an autologous excised aortic patch in a 65-year-old patient with SVAS.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.557-562
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• 1985

One case of anatomically corrected malposition of the great arteries was managed at department of cardiothoracic surgery, Chungnam National University Hospital at May, 1984. Anatomically corrected malposition of the great arteries was an extremely rare congenital heart disease. Only 21 cases were reported in English literatures. If there are no associated cardiac disease, the patient will have normal life span. This 39 year old man had suffered from exertional dyspnea for 6 years. He had carried out normal military service as a sergeant for 8 years, and his life was not restricted before this episode. He had operated under diagnosis of mitral stenoinsufficiency & tricuspid regurgitation but died because of lower cardiac output.,br> At autopsy, the great arteries were malpositioned but viscera and lung were normal position and picture. The aortic valve was located left and anterior to the pulmonic valve and there are bilateral conus in this anatomically corrected malposition of the great arteries. The coronary arteries were normal distribution.

• Korean Circulation Journal
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• v.52 no.10
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• pp.721-736
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• 2022

Aortic stenosis (AS) is one of the most common valvular heart diseases and the number of patients with AS is expected to increase globally as the older population is growing fast. Since the majority of patients are elderly, AS is no longer a simple valvular heart disease of left ventricular outflow obstruction but is accompanied by other cardiac and comorbid conditions. Because of the significant variations of the disease, identifying patients at high risk and even earlier detection of patients with AS before developing symptomatic severe AS is becoming increasingly important. With the proven of efficacy and safety of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in the severe AS population, there is a growing interest in applying TAVR in those with less than severe AS. A medical therapy to reduce or prevent the progression in AS is actively investigated by several randomized control trials. In this review, we will summarize the most recent findings in AS and discuss potential future management strategies of patients with AS.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.401-409
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• 2004

Background: As the rupture of chordae and/or papillary muscle became the main cause of mitral valve regurgitation, mitral reconstructive surgery has a very important role. In this regard, we analyzed the clinical result and postoperative early result of operative treatment performed in our hospital, Material and Method: For this analysis, forty nine patients (male 26, female 23, mean age 49.0$\pm$16.5) who underwent mitral valve operation caused by the rupture of chordae and/or papillary muscle from August 1991 to April 2002 were reviewed. Among forty nine patients, twenty two (44.9%) received mital valve reconstruction and twenty seven (59.2%) received mitral valve replacement. Result: As to the pathological etiology of rupture of mitral and papillary muscle, twenty five cases (51.0%) were nonspecific degeneration, eleven cases (22.4%) were myxomatous degeneration, seven cases (14.3%) were subacute bacterial endocarditis. Three patients suffered mortality after operation (6.1%) and valve replacement was performed again on one patient because of remnant mitral insufficiency after valve reconstruction. The 5-year survival rate after operation for the entire mitral valve regurgitation patients was 81 .4%. We have also compared and analyzed the operation results of a group of patients who underwent valve reconstruction and the other group of patients who underwent valve replacement from thirty six patients who had suffered from mitral valve regurgitation caused by degenerative disease. The mortalities were 0% and 14.3%, respectively and the 5-year survival rates were 90.2% and 64.3%, respectively, but there were no statistical significance. Conclusion: The most common pathological etiology of mitral valve regurgitation caused by rupture of chordae and/or papillary muscle was nonspecific degeneration, In case of degenerative disease is the cause of mitral valve regurgitation, valve reconstruction showed better long-term effects in many respects and better operation results compared to valve replacement.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.52-54
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• 1998

Recently, several versatile approaches via limited incision have been developed for minimally invasive cardiac surgery. As the incision is limited, it is often dfficult to get a satisfactory operative field, especially for the manipulation of two separate lesions such as simultaneous mitral and aortic valve disease with a single limited incision. Here, we describe a case of successful double valve replacement via ministernotomy, which was followed by two cases of minimally invasive aortic valve replacement via transsternal approach. The operative field was unexceptionally satisfactory and the postoperative patient's acceptance was high. The methodology is described with a review of the relevant literatures.